Forgotten Fallen Friend
by FluffleNeCharka
Summary: As Volkner's depression hits an all time high, he takes a temporary vacation to travel with a girl named Neesha. But as they travel through Kanto, repressed memories begin to emerge, and they begin to realize something's very wrong. Pairings inside.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Notes: If you don't recognize the girl at the end of this chapter, she's Neesha from the first Pokemon movie. And since I couldn't find it on any shipping list, Volkner/Neesha is **RestorationShipping**.

* * *

_I touch the fire and it freezes me; I look into it and it's black. Why can't I feel? My skin should crack and peel. I want the fire back._ - Buffy, during the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Musical

_We shine despite the twilight hours, when darkness falls on that's ours. But yet we flee to open ground, where light is found. Your loneliness is not your home, and you're not alone. Not this time, don't go back. We are part of something more that seems to be just you and me, just you and me._ - Golden by Klee

* * *

I'm so tired.

Why am I even alive? That isn't sarcasm. I want an answer. Why am I even trying? Why… why am I trying to keep going anymore? Anyone else could do this job. It's not hard, not like it used to be. Nothing exciting ever happens, a sea of interchangeable challengers who go down in one hit and those awful empty days spent alone. I can't remember the last time I smiled. When was the last time someone really challenged me? I miss the days where I felt things, where I was alive, yelling and planning and strategizing on the fly. Pokemon battles used to be everything to me. Now I can't truly call what I have battling, nor can I really say I'm alive.

There is an inescapable grayness all around me, thick as smoke. It chokes me every waking moment. I look around me and see so much of the same thing that all sense of time has become meaningless. It might as well be yesterday or last year, tomorrow or next year. There is nothing to mark the time, no new pictures on the wall to commemorate a challenger beating me. No scorch marks or damage to the rooms, either – no one fights well enough for that anymore. It's like I'm in a time capsule. All around me it's as if life had frozen, stalled forever at one single point in time, and I can't take it. When did this become my life? I remember being the rising star of the Sinnoh Pokemon League and how the fans cheered as I was awarded my rank and Gym. They're gone now, of course. They left me to this absolutely worthless existence.

What would they do if I vanished? Six or seven days would pass before anyone even noticed. I don't mean anything to anyone, not anymore. I am that guy, the one people have a hard time defeating so people don't even try. I'm that guy, the enemy no one admires like they do the other Gym leaders. I'm too tough, they say, and their disdain reminds me of what I am. I am a burden on the system, a Gym Leader as tough as an Elite. I shouldn't be here. I should be in the Elite Four, having exciting battles. I should be out there fighting real fights and living a real life. But I can't even try for that anymore. I don't want to. I don't have the strength to go there and make my presence known. Recently, something happened. Something snapped inside me, like a muscle giving way, and I don't know if I'm going to make it out of this alive.

Quite frankly I don't know if I care. I'm so damn tired of this, of all of it. It's all so hard to put up with. Every day is the same as the last. My family never calls and never writes. The Master Coordinators of Sinnoh and Hoenn have no time for me. They never have, ever since I got my first Gym badge. And I'm too sick of trying to even bother anymore. All of my friends either got married or went on with their own careers and forgot me. I guess I'm not worth remembering to them. They say they care to my face, of course, but they go months without talking to me if I don't force my presence upon them. Which I don't anymore – I can take a hint. Why bother to try to go where I'm not wanted, be with people who don't want me there? I'm nothing but a burden on them. So let my depression swallow me. No one will notice and no one will care. _I_ can't even work up the energy to give a damn, and it's my life in the balance. You know you're a loser when even you can't think of a reason you shouldn't kill yourself anymore.

Why am I even faking I'm okay? No one gives a damn. The Trainers in my Gym just want to get strong enough to replace me. Past that they don't care and quite frankly each of them is good enough for the job. I'm beginning to have trouble trying to hide my problems when I know that I could run around naked and no one would bat an eyelid. I'm suffocating in this monotony, in this place with one season, only sunshine and the same Trainers day after day. I don't feel the sunshine on my face anymore. I don't taste the food I put in my mouth. I don't dream when I sleep. All I do is wait, and I don't know what I'm waiting for. Everyone knows I'm a selfish jerk with issues. They all want me gone. Even if they don't say it, they think it and they make it clear that I'm too much of an asshole to be their friend. I don't blame people. I've changed. This isn't who I used to be. Or more accurately, this isn't who I used to fake being. But over the years my strength has faded and I just can't try to be social. Faking I'm doing even kind of alright is taking everything I have.

None of this answers the question, why? And since I don't have an answer, I stand here on the edge of a cliff. Well, more accurately I'm sitting here on the edge of a cliff and looking over the edge to the rocks below. I see all of the jagged, dark forms below me. I can picture how easy it would be to slip off and let this monotony come crashing to an end so why am I still here? I bite back a sigh, looking at my wristwatch. They say most suicidal people will change their mind if given an hour to calm down. I've been here an hour. Though I guess that whole concept was null and void in my case to start with. After all, I don't need to calm down. My problem is an absolute lack of emotion. My world has gone gray and dull, my life has become repetitious and meaningless, and I'm tired. I'm very tired. Why should I try to keep going? It's all pointless. Somehow my life has become empty, unbearably empty and monotone. I don't want this anymore.

My willpower is gone. The old me might've gone off to challenge the Elite Four or travel again. I can't even muster the enthusiasm for that. I am dead inside, cold and devoid of reason to keep going. I've been sitting here for an hour trying to find something to hold onto, some kind of hope to cling to tightly. I want to feel something again, even if it's just annoyance or frustration – I'd even take sadness or hate nowadays. Something. I need something, some emotion, some reason, some motivation. Where are all the old reams I had of becoming the Champion? I used to have such passionate and determination. It was like white hot electricity consuming me and fueling me to the level I've reached now. That's not fair. I fight and claw my way to the top so I can rot in this dull, pathetic shell of a town? What kind of moral to my life's story is that? Try your hardest in life and you too will end up alone and forgotten, never doing a damn thing worth noting?

I wish someone would come here and intervene. Somebody tell me there's a challenger here to kick my ass. Someone call me for once. Someone act like they're happy to see me. Someone slap me just to start a fight. I don't want to live like this. It's too empty – please, someone come here and rescue me like they do on TV. Someone sweep in to tell me how I'm loved and wanted, precious and special or whatever mushy crap it takes to snap me out of this. This can't be it. This can't be what my life's become. I don't want to fall off this cliff, but I'm so tired of being me. I'm so hollow and I don't want this, I don't want this to be how it ends and I can't stand this being my life anymore. What am I supposed to do? Why am I like this? Something went wrong somewhere along the line, and I can't understand what or when.

My eyes close. I let myself fall. For a brief moment fear flickers through me. Then there is only the wind as I plummet, waiting for it to be over. It's like a rollercoaster, and for the record I never could open my eyes on those either. I feel nothing, as I always do. And that's when it happens. A blast of water hits me, pushing me backwards through mid air until I hit the water. Startled, I struggle to swim in the sea as a voice tells me to hold on. I see a pale hand, a Kantoan one, reaching for me over the white mass of Dewgong, a Kanto Pokemon I can barely recognize. Out of sheer instinct and shock I reach for the hand and find strong arms wrapped around me as a firm voice tells me she's got me. My body is shaking all over from the realization of what I've almost done, but her grip on my shoulders is firm as she tells the Dewgong to swim us to shore. I don't think she realizes what I've done. She thinks I just slipped off.

But I can't turn down the only person on Earth who gives a damn that I'm alive. Sky blue eyes shining, she tells me to come inside the Pokemon Center with her. While her Pokemon heal we can talk and she'll get me something to eat. She says I look tired, and I am suddenly keenly aware of her grip on my hands. She's warm and real, and very much alive. I find myself agreeing because suddenly I see color, I feel the ground beneath my feet, I don't want to die. I don't understand it. I don't have to. I just need to be with someone who doesn't see me as the jackass Gym Leader. I want to be with someone who thinks of me as a person. And she does. She sees my emotions and she watches me intently, dark brown hair catching the street light as she tilts her head.

And I'm not tired anymore.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Notes: I was taught that paragraphs express a full cluster of thoughts and you move on when the subject of the story changes. I've also been taught that the six sentences equal a paragraph rule is what you should use in writing children's books. Mind you, I've been taught this by every single college professor I've had thus far, so it's firmly ingrained in my brain at this point. If eight sentences in a row are too much for you, then, well, I'm sorry but I can't seem to stop myself at this point. It's just been forced on me for too long for me to drop; I can't shake the habit no matter how hard I try. This is why I can't write drabbles; I'm just incapable of writing in that style.

Also, apologies for the plot not properly starting until chapter three. But without proper set up, fic becomes rushed and obnoxious, and hey, at least this chapter is significantly more upbeat.

* * *

_Love. Devotion. Feeling. **Emotion**. Don't be afraid to weak. Don't be too proud to be strong. Just look into your heart my friend, that will be the return to yourself. The return to yourself – if you want, then start to laugh. If you must, then start to cry. Don't care what people say, just follow your own way. Don't give up and lose the chance to return to yourself._ – Return to Innocence by Enigma

* * *

"These are my Pokemon. This is Shellshocker, my Blastoise. He's my starter from way back in the day," She added affectionately. The turtle grinned proudly as she rubbed his belly idly with one hand. "And you already met Watercut, my Dewgong." The white Pokemon nuzzled me affectionately; his Trainer smiled. She did that quite often. "That's my Vileplume, Hibiscus. I have a Wigglytuff that's at my house right now back in Kanto, with my mom. I left my Ninetails there too. She found a nice Arcanine and she's started a family, you know? I still have a Fire Pokemon though, a Rapidash named Blaze. He needs to be healed, but he's a total badass. Anyway, so what are your Pokemon?"

Why was I having a conversation with a Kantoan girl at the break of dawn in sopping wet clothes that had yet to properly dry? Well, honestly, that was a very good question, but not one that I had an answer for. I suppose it was because she was easy to talk to. She seemed determined to fill the time until her injured Pokemon was healed with friendly chatter. There was something very familiar about her. I couldn't help but wonder if we'd met before, and I kept thinking she was wearing a purple top with beige pants. Where had I seen that outfit before? I must've met someone who looked like her before, in the sea of never ending challengers that used to come here. But I would've remembered someone so nice and calm. After seeing as many Trainers hellbent on destroying me, the normal ones stuck out in my memory.

But she wasn't like that. She was very much a Kanto girl from the second I met her, with pale skin and lots of sophisticated technology, and she didn't seem to want a fight. Like most Kantoan people she wasn't a believer in any deities. Having had more than enough lecturing on Arceus, Palkia and Dialga from Cynthia and multiple other challengers, I could only sigh in relief. I never could stand to talk about religion. It was all too far removed from the present and now to seem real. And talking about gods never ended well. I preferred small talk about my Pokemon and their varying levels of power and battle tactics – once upon a time people had cared about me enough to talk to me like I was normal, and this wasn't a rarity. At the present she was the only person I could think of that was remotely interested in anything I might say. I began to feel some of my old self drift back to me. There had been times where I'd sat up all night talking about battle strategies and winning, long days spent training and searching for new Pokemon.

That was the life Neesha was living, and I had to have it. I had to live again. Perhaps there was a time where I would have thought the Elite Four would give me the challenge I sought, but in Neesha I saw a path long forgotten. Maybe it wasn't the battles, it was the _life_ that I needed desperately. Moving from place, eating all kinds of food, meeting all kinds of people, camping, fighting, training in every kind of weather and environment, catching new Pokemon, being free to do whatever whenever – that was what I needed. I didn't need more uniform battles in a new location. For too long I'd laid there in the dark, suffocating a little more with every day, but there was nothing stopping me from getting up and walking away. Nothing except a lack of motivation, that is. I hadn't even had the strength to save myself from my own depression. Perhaps what I needed wasn't a change of scenery, but a change of absolutely everything. That was Neesha's very life in a nutshell and a life that I recalled fondly. This was some kind of chance to live again being handed to me. I couldn't pass it up.

"I'm thinking about traveling again," I had blurted out before I could stop myself, "As a Trainer, I mean. It was nice to train for a while in my hometown, but I'm ready to move on."

She nodded in agreement. "I know what you mean. I think everybody has the desire to go back to their roots every now and again, but nothing compares to traveling as a Trainer. I'm thinking about going back to Kanto and trying my hand at completing my Pokedex over there. Where are you going?"

"Kanto," I said immediately. "I need to broaden my team from one type of Sinnoh Pokemon, and I've never been there before. It sounds like a different world from the way most people describe it."

"It is, but in a very good way," she assured me. "If you want, we should travel together. I know the lay of the land and all that, and traveling is just more fun with two people."

I jumped at the opportunity. She was more than happy to have me along, and I was thrilled to be getting out of this place where I'd grown so cold and distant. It should have struck me as odd that I was so willing to go with her. But she wasn't a stranger to me. Somehow she felt familiar, like I'd known her forever and could trust her completely. Maybe rationally she shouldn't have been so happy to have a complete stranger travel with her, yet she seemed absolutely at ease with me. We were natural friends. It felt good to have someone care about me for once. I knew wasn't rational, yet somehow I felt like I'd been alone in a city full of people before someone arrived who didn't know me. There's some mental gymnastics involved in that thought process. In essence I needed someone who treated me like a normal person and thus a stranger was perfect in a way none of the people I'd known my whole life could ever be.

Still, I kept thinking over and over again that she was not a stranger. It was a phrase on repeat through my mind. She was familiar, somehow. I didn't try to analyze it. Miracles shouldn't be over-thought to the point where they become burdens instead of miracles. Sometimes, once bad things have happened to you over and over again, you just embrace anything good that comes your way without digging into the reasons behind it. This is known far and wide as being gullible and can get you killed if you treat absolutely everything in life this way. Thankfully this wasn't one of those times, and we made some travel plans while waiting for her Pokemon to heal. Then she and I headed out to face the world, her through the eyes of an eternal optimist and me through the eyes of someone out of other options in life. I was having a midlife crisis at age twenty eight, and she was viewing even the most familiar territory of her homeland through the wide hopeful eyes of a child. I can't say whether or not opposites attract - I was not attracted to her at all romantically at this point - but I can attest to how refreshing and good it can be to have someone different with you. Perhaps that was why I was friends with Flint back in Sinnoh.

I could describe the boat ride, the two weeks on foot and the speedy train ride it took to get us to Kanto. Truthfully, though, I remember more about her than the places we went. There was something about her that was strangely haunting me. I had seen her before somewhere, long ago. I couldn't recall it to save my life. I found myself torn between asking her about it and the fear of ruining a good thing. On the one hand, I didn't want to spew out any Sinnohian religious crap about having known her in a past life because Kantoan people don't believe in that. On the other, _I_ didn't believe in that and I still kept getting déjà vu everywhere we went together. This made me reexamine my beliefs, if only briefly. If the crap the church in Hearthome was spewing out was true and friends reincarnated alongside each other, God must've had a different definition of the word nearby than I did. Neesha was born on the other side of the continent and I'd only made a single other friend in my life. Did that mean I'd only had two friends before? What an uplifting thought.

Still, as much of a pessimist as I am, there was something about her. I couldn't put it into words. It was more of a feeling. There were moments when it was most acute; she would lean her head on my shoulder, or grab my hands in hers, or laugh softly, and it was like a beam of sunlight and nostalgia slammed into me. Neesha uplifted me and confused me at the same time. Her gestures, voice, even her Pokemon were so familiar it was like I'd known them all of my life. Neesha's attitude was eternally as mine had once been, determination and passion mixed in with a degree of optimism that I had never possessed. She was able to find a good Trainer in a sea of jerks, a Pokemon worth catching on a mundane road, and a reason to smile even in thick rain that left us drenched as we ran for an hour to the nearest shelter.

Only when we reached Kanto did I realize something: I was happy. It was such a new and unfamiliar feeling that I didn't realize it for a week. When I did, I realized I'd been happy the entire time since I'd met Neesha. We'd battled our way through a dozen odd Trainers, I'd captured an Oddish that liked to run alongside me, and somehow I'd broken free of the darkness that'd had a stranglehold on me for so long. We were eating cheap ramen on a park bench while some of our Pokemon ran and (in her case) swam around when it hit me that I felt content. Not freakishly joyous like after a good battle or drowning under the weight of existing like back home. I was content, genuinely happy in a kind of warm way. It's that joy that comes to you when you spend time with someone who doesn't expect anything from you, no pretension or acts, just you.

That happiness was called friendship, and with it I was alive once more.


	3. Chapter 3

_Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, 'Where have I gone wrong?' Then a voice says to me, 'This is going to take more than one night.'_ — Charles Schulz

_He who believes in nobody knows that he himself is not to be trusted_._ –_ Berthold Auerbach_

* * *

_

The first thing that made me realize this was not normal was the dreams.

Everything was chaos, wind and rising seas, voices, shouts of defiance and screams of terror. There was Neesha, clinging to Watercut as if the Dewgong could save her from the storm. In the ocean where the water rolled over them and broke over their heads repeatedly I saw her choke and gasp. Her grip was iron, her eyes were blazing. She glanced above to me, and smiled. I knew then that we could win this thing together. Her Pokemon blazed ahead with admirable strength and determination. To my right a young man on a Pidgeotto flew adjacent, his face hardened in a permanent serious frown as the rain grew more intense. It was pelting us, hurting us as we forced our way ahead. Neesha began to gain distance on me until I could no longer see her. I looked aside and the Fearow was gone; I called out but my voice was swallowed by the wind. Something hot and cold and, burning and freezing, struck me and I fell towards the water, my Fearow screaming as he fell. I reached for him. I know I said his name, saw him look at me with fear in his eyes. Then I went under the water and everything was hazy, eyes burning with the salt of it and voice unheard as my head barely broke the surface before going under. The water pulled me down hard, and everything went dark.

Each morning I woke in a cold sweat. The details and clarity with which I remembered weren't normal for me. On an average day I didn't even know if I dreamed. Now I couldn't get the images from my mind, no matter how hard I tried. When we arrived in Lavender Town, staying at a proper hotel, I went to the Pokemon Tower for reasons I didn't understand. Most people in Sinnoh are admittedly a bit superstitious and religious, yet for all Cynthia's talk of legends, I was never part of that crowd. The draw to the building produced the same feeling as the dreams and the sight of Neesha in purple clothing. Something was there, just beyond my reach, some knowledge that I desperately needed and wanted, and I couldn't ignore it. I had to go. I had to try to figure this thing out somehow. Walking silently among the graves, wincing at the sight of a young Trainer sobbing over his stillborn Eevee, I scanned the headstones as if looking for something. I didn't know what it was, but I'd know it when I found it.

Everything was quiet, that awful silence filled with pain and mourning. Neesha and I had often lapsed into companionable silence, but this atmosphere was instead made up of sobs, whispers, words to the dead that hadn't been spoken in life. I went unnoticed in the rooms, up the floors, everyone too absorbed in their own personal tragedies. Slowly, I looked over the graves and came to the realization that one day, when I was buried, my Pokemon would probably not stand there and sob over my loss. They would never mourn me like I would mourn them. In order for a Pokemon to miss you, you have to have bonded with it. I could never bond with anyone, human or otherwise. No matter what I tried, ultimately I was always alone in the end. That was what had made the decision to end my own life seem so appealing. I knew no one would care; my job would be taken in a week and my Pokemon given to my successor, my house sold off by the city and only Flint would even notice, several weeks later. The fact that he hadn't called me or tried to contact me when I left with Neesha was only further proof that I wasn't meant to be there, in that role. So logically, I was meant to be somewhere else, doing something else entirely. I just wish I knew what it was.

There was a grave on the third floor, in a far corner with all Pokemon they didn't have names and dates for. _Gloom, loving and loyal to the end_ one said. Next to it was _Shiny Onix; may he rest in peace_. I passed down the line with increasing anxiety, feeling irrationally that I was about to find the missing piece to the puzzle. I found it dusty and devoid of flowers, in a corner where the light was low. _Fearow, a true hero. No greater love have a 'mon, than that he would lay down his life for his Trainer_. And like a light switch had been flipped within me, I sank to the floor and felt tears flood my eyes even as they went wide in shock. Where the dream had ended, I could now fill in the gaps. In a storm that intense I should have died, drowned in the water to be found one day by some terrified marine Pokemon. Instead, somehow he'd saved me. The strain of carrying me to land after being struck by lightning… he couldn't have survived that, he hadn't, and I had just forgotten everything he did for me. I'd rushed off and gotten us both killed because I was seeking a challenge. I wanted an interesting fight. I was tired of boring matches. I'd been such a damn _fool_.

"I'm sorry, Fearow," I said softly, touching the gravestone. The obsidian granite mix was cool and smooth under my fingertips. "For getting you into that mess, for being such a half assed Trainer, for everything. I'm sorry."

It occurs to me that there could be others. There could be a whole team of Pokemon I've lost. There could be a whole family of relatives dead and unmourned or alive and alone. I try to push the thought away. Sinnoh was my home. I made it my home through years of sweat and effort, training and triumph. I'd had nowhere else I could remember, nowhere else to go, so I had made a spot for myself, carved out a niche, and tried not to let anyone see how unstable I was. I'd tried to forget that I didn't have any memories, pretend like I was normal and everything was fine, yet late at night there had always been the void. Now I was standing at the precipice, the point of no return. I could go home, kick out whoever had taken over in my absence, apologize to Flint and pretend that there was nothing wrong. I could be a Gym Leader, maybe even a member of the Elite Four, respected and well known, safe and secure in the knowledge that I was a good Trainer and a good man. Or I could take the plunge and uncover whatever horrors were waiting for me in my long forgotten homeland. I wouldn't like everything I found – this grave was proof enough of that – but I would finally _know_, I would be able to say where I came from, what I did, and who I was. In Sinnoh I was Volkner the lonely and powerful Trainer. In Johto and Hoenn I was a nobody. In Kanto, somewhere, long buried under years of absence, there was me, the real me.

I stood on uneasy feet to make my way back to the hotel. Neesha was a curious piece of this particular plot; she was too straight forward to be lying to me. Perhaps she didn't remember either. Maybe she was hiding under that smile the way I'd buried all my fears and uncertainties in training; it certainly was easier than facing the horrible truth of not knowing. The two of us had the same origin, whatever it was, and we'd managed to survive alone after it… Yet, we hadn't really lived until we found each other again. We basked in each other's familiarity, in the strange sense of _I know you_ that we both felt. If I were a spiritual man I'd have called it a blessing to have met her. If I were a god-worshipper I'd have thanked some deity for it. As it was I just wondered if maybe we weren't both just desperate for company. Her drive to train her favorites and only her favorites, never the strongest or most popular Pokemon, made her an eccentric if not an outright freak to most people. I was man enough to admit I had some problems dealing with people. Maybe that was how we'd become friends the first time.

Or maybe not. I didn't know. All I could do was guess and, for the first time in my life, admit to someone that I was lost in this life and needed help uncovering the past. I didn't want to say it. I didn't like saying it, even to her. Knowing that deep down I was just a lonely and confused Trainer was a blow to whatever pride and dignity I had left. Unfortunately, I also knew it had to be done. Firstly, I was older and therefore should've been the more mature one. Secondly, if you don't want things to be the way they've always been, don't do what you've always done. Time to admit that deep down I was an empty vessel and all I knew for sure was that I had gotten my Fearow killed. And I hadn't even managed to explain the suicide attempt to Neesha yet. I couldn't even begin to imagine telling someone as driven and focused as her that deep down I was weak enough to want to end it all. I couldn't imagine ever telling anyone that. Then again, if you'd told me a few months ago I'd be running around the globe with a twenty year old girl, I'd have thought you were mad. More and more of the things I could never imagine were coming true. So one day, when I was sure she would understand, I'd tell her. It was the least I could do after she saved my life.

As I was travelling more in the land where I'd lost my memories, I was beginning to recall more things. I remembered a stadium made of colorful bricks and baby Pokemon fighting. I remembered the laughter of a tan skinned boy whose eyes were perpetually blocked by his hat, and the way he used to hold his Gloom close. There were Scythers lined up cutting logs and a scoreboard the crowd watched eagerly. Ever present, there was Neesha, her face a hundred different expressions stuck to my mind as if engraved in my memory. She clutched her hands together as she watched the Donphan pack race, she crinkled her nose in confusion at school as a complicated battle concept was explained, she cheered as a brave Cleffa belonging to the tan skinned, dark browned haired boy fought in the stadium, and her blue eyes were always focused. I had been there beside her. I had seen it. I had lived through days and days at her side, done things with her, but if I tried to focus the memories would slip away. They were vague, few recognizable words, no details, always small tidbits with no context to them. I didn't know where we had been. I didn't know who that boy was we had both known and trained with. I couldn't have hazarded a guess to our ages. All I knew was that it all felt real and certain in a way nothing else had. That _had_ been us, I was sure of it. I stopped walking mid-step, struck by a sudden, horrifying thought.

If I was here, and Neesha was here, where was the boy with the Gloom? I shut my eyes as the reality slammed into me like a punch to the gut. _Loving and loyal to the end,_ the tombstone had said. Buried at nearly the same date as Fearow. I remembered begging him for his strongest Pokemon. She was his.

"Oh my Arceus, what have I done?"


End file.
